Monday, March 14, 2011

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

I found this article to be very interesting, because I've experienced a lot of what is written about in this article and I think it is a great look inside the marketing plan behind it, as little as it is. As a cyclist myself (not a PBR drinker though), I've known many people that are fans of the brand for many of the same reasons mentioned in the article, and it is interesting to hear the background behind company and how it is currently approaching its marketing. I think the culture/s that are mentioned in this article are exactly as the are portrayed in terms of rejecting larger corporations and favoring home-grown, local companies, and brands (despite whether they may or may not be). The interesting thing about Pabst's marketing plan is that is focuses primarily on local and small events, to give the local company feel, and yet do that on a national level. The thing Pabst has going for it, that few companies do, is they already have a "group of people who embraced the brand" as Neal Stewart from the article puts it. That gives Pabst the advantage of having a select demographic of people who embrace and share the brand of Pabst with no advertising or marketing needed.It was also interesting to read about how some of the marketing people/firms hired by Pabst came from many of the larger breweries nationally, and essentially had to stop themselves from doing what they were trained to do and re-think about how to brand and market a company to a culture that doesn't pay attention to or rejects traditional marketing. It is a funny approach to go into everything trying to "always look and act the underdog" as Stewart said. Most companies approaches would the complete opposite. It is a very interesting article because it looks at how marketing is evolving in this time of relentless advertising all around us, and how perhaps for the future companies will focus more directly on how the market to people effectively without bombarding them with ads.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Friday, December 3, 2010

I found many of the works in this chapter very interesting and ground breaking for their time, but I found it a little bit difficult to find "art" in what I would consider some of which just being telecommunications, or computer science advances. The fact that there is a point, statement, or concept behind the work, as well as its location is what contributes to it being "art". One such example is the "Telegarden" by Ken Goldberg and Joseph Santarromana. (pg. 155). The work allows for users to remotely control an articulating robotical arm through the internet from the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria. The robotic arm would care for a small garden of plants by planting seeds, watering, and monitoring them. I found the work to be incredibly interesting in terms of technology and the ability to remotely care for and grow plants in another location. However, I tended to see this project, like many others in the chapter like technological advances on the roles of computers, and the internet. However, because of its social networking/ interactive component, and it's placement it is considered also a work of "art". I feel that the book best says this " Telegarden explicitly emphasized the aspect of community by inviting people around the world to collectively cultivate a small ecosystem. Survival of the ecology was dependent on a remote social network. " It is the exploration of social networking, technology, and nature which makes this work an 'artwork".

I think many of the works in this book will all fall into this category of being what I consider mostly to be technological advances, with a smaller component of art to them, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It is only through the advancement of technology the the realm of digital art even exists, and through its current rapid growth digital art is growing and changing at the same speed of technology.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

So for my embracing the digital esthetic project I wanted to work with doing composite photos at night using various exposures and editing techniques to achieve a more surreal photo then could have been achieved otherwise. I was aiming to achieve a look that emulates that of photographer, Dave Hill, yet still keeping the idea and style somewhat of my own. The concept behind this image, and the images for my next project will be on crime. This image is supposed to depict two would be robbers making their getaway after a botched home robbery.

Below are the images I used to create the above final image above. Each of the three people were lit individually to get the best lighting all the way around for the people, then I used two base images to get an even exposed background and surroundings to give it a much more natural feel.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

I've long been fascinated with the fabricated landscapes in photoshop that show a distant planet, or nearby stars and galaxies just outside our atmosphere. It gives such a surreal effect bringing the beauty of the galaxy to the earth's evening view. So, for my fabrication project I chose to use some of my landscapes that I had already shot, and added a few neighbors to the evenings sky.

I studied a number of images that I liked that gave the look I wanted to achieve. You can see a good sample of some of the images in this google images search. Below are some of the images I used to create the sky background. In photoshop I tried to find pictures with late evening skies so that when I used the "screen" blend mode for the layers they came through nicely. The brighter the sky, the harder this was to achieve. Once I changed the blend mode to "screen" I used levels to bring in the blacks to help the layer of the planets or stars blend in seamlessly with the background images.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

I found this recent story on the www.theOnion.com. I think it is a great parody because it uses multiple forms to convey a sense of reality. There is a picture with Bush with a bunch of space stuff behind him, and an illustration of his plan, along with supporting text. All of this is displayed in a very believable format much like many of the major news networks. It has well written, journalistic text with accompanying pictures and illustrations to add to the truth value for the story.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

When you look deeply into any commercial photography these days, you'll realize that many of the images represented today, are composites, combining 2 or more images together to achieve a more pleasing image, weather that goal is to sell a product, convey a message, or to just make the image more aesthetically pleasing.

For a good idea of this visit: www.joemorahan.com .

He uses composites in some of his images to combine sunning landscapes with athletes in action. I wanted to use this technique on something I am a little more familiar with, which is BMX bicycling. By using a couple of different images, and paying attention to lighting characteristics of the photos, I combined the two together to create an image, that not only never happened, but is an image of a trick that would be so crazy that, I hope, it would never be attempted.